Manifesto Process

From my manifesto research, I had gained a better view of what I wanted to achieve and how to achieve that, for my own manifesto. But before getting on to creating an interesting artefact for the project, I first needed to write the damn thing!

About Me!

A big help for writing the manifesto was looking back over a small exercise we were tasked with completing back in week one of the project. In this project, we had to answer a set of question that (YOU GUESSED IT) related to ourselves.

By going over this, with the knowledge from my manifesto research and without having to worry about a deadline this time, I was able to comb through what I had written about myself and pick what I deemed important enough to be included in my manifesto. Knowing that I wanted manifesto to have a personality that related to my practice as well as being true to who I am outside of my art, I was able to narrow down what was in my about me answers to 5 main points.

I am a slight nerd. Lover of fantasy/fiction.

I am no stranger to using colour. Vibrant and psychedelic colour!

I am so gay (the homosexual kind).

I am very bad at trusting myself and my ideas. Basically, I am riddled with self-doubt and anxiety.

I am ready to accept and express who I am and share that with the world.

Birth of my Manifesto!

Looking back at my process, I could have easily used those 5 points that I felt my manifesto needed as my entire manifest. They’re straight to the point. they explain who I am and what I think is important about me and my character as well as my art practice. however, I do feel that it doesn’t really solve anything? To me, I need a nice strong ending! and while there is a slight hint of personality in there, I felt it needed more. To do this I needed to avoid creating a list.

DONT BE BORING THOUGH! God forbid I skip doing a list (which have plenty of pros) to end up with a boring story about myself and my goals…. riveting. To be able to overcome this dilemma was actually really easy. all I had to do was look over my points and see who I am. Okay 1, I’m a big old nerd. how can this avoid being boring? Easy I love fantasy, right? so bring that into my manifesto! Make my manifesto a fairy tale depicting how I see my nerdy self. 🤓

The next two I feel go hand in hand. I don’t shy away from using colour, especially not pink! Why? because I didn’t spend close to two decades inside the closet to continue hiding away myself and my interests! I believe that my vivacious colour palette comes from being gay and the love for the vibrancy that surrounds LGBT culture like an aura, so I am damn sure going to show my pride by harnessing every colour in the rainbow!

Now the bad. Trusting and believing in myself and my ideas is something I don’t tend to do too well. I believe this comes from not accepting myself and who I was. By putting myself in this damn ‘closet’ everyone talks about I ended up being forced into a ‘friendship’ with anxiety and she basically bosses me around. But guess what she’s not my damn friend and I don’t have to listen to her! She can stay in the closet for all I care.

This leads me to my last point. am ready to accept and express who I am and share that with the world. No explanation needed.

Taking all of this into consideration, I was ready to put my pen to the paper and get writing. So stayed tuned for the finished manifesto piece. ✌🏻